CBSE Book Class 9 English Fiction The Man Who Knew

Fiction

UNIT-3

1. With your partner, discuss and narrate an incident about a person who likes to  show off.

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Check whether your classmates agree with you.

2. Now, read about the "Professor" who knew too much and find out if he knew  enough!

1. I first met  Private  Quelch at the training depot. A man is liable to acquire in his first  week of Army life - together with his uniform, rifle and equipment- a nickname.  Anyone who saw Private Quelch, lanky, stooping, frowning through horn-rimmed  spectacles, understood why he was known as the Professor. Those who had any  doubts on the subject lost them after five minutes' conversation with him. 

2. I remember the first lesson we had in musketry. We stood in an attentive circle  while a Sergeant, a man as dark and sun-dried as raisins, wearing North-West  Frontier ribbons,  described the mechanism of a service rifle.

3. "The muzzle velocity or speed at which the bullet leaves the rifle", he told us, "is  well over two thousand feet per second."

4. A voice interrupted. "Two thousand, four hundred and forty feet per second." It  was the Professor.

5. "That's right," the Sergeant said without enthusiasm, and went on lecturing. When  he had finished, he put questions to us; and, perhaps in the hope of revenge, he turned with his questions again and again to the Professor. The only result was to  enhance the Professor's glory. Technical definitions, the parts of the rifle, its use  and care, he had them all by heart.

6. The Sergeant asked, "You had any training before?"

7. The Professor answered with a phrase that was to become familiar to all of us.  "No, Sergeant. It's all a matter of intelligent reading."

8. That was our introduction to him. We soon learned more about him. He saw to  that.  He  meant  to  get  on,  he  told  us.  He  had  brains.  He  was  sure  to  get  a  commission, before long. As a first step, he meant to get a  stripe.

9. In pursuit of his ambition he worked hard. We had to give him credit for that. He  borrowed  training  manuals  and  stayed  up  late  at  nights  reading  them.  He  badgered the instructors with questions. He drilled with enthusiasm, and onroute  marches  he  was  not  only  miraculously  tireless  but  infuriated  us  all  with  his  horrible heartiness. "What about a song, chaps?" is not greeted politely at the end  of thirty miles. His salute at the pay table was a model to behold. When officers  were in sight he would swing his skinny arms and march to the canteen like a  Guardsman.

10. And day in and day out, he lectured to us in his droning, remorseless voice on  every aspect of human knowledge. At first we had a certain respect for him, but  soon we lived in terror of his approach. We tried to hit back at him with clumsy  sarcasms and practical jokes. The Professor scarcely noticed; he was too busy  working for his stripe.

11. Each time one of us made a mistake the Professor would publicly correct him.  Whenever one of us shone, the Professor outshone him. When, after a hard  morning's  work  cleaning  out  our  hut,  we  listened  in  silence  to  the  Orderly Officer'spraise, the Professor would break out with a ringing, dutifully beaming,  "Thank you, sir!" And how superior, how  condescending he was. It was always,  "Let me show you, fellow," or, "No, you'll ruin your rifle, that way, old man."

12. We used to pride ourselves on aircraft recognition. Once, out for a walk, we heard  the drone of a plane flying high overhead. None of us could even see it in the glare  of the sun. Without even a glance upward the Professor announced, "That, of  course, is a North American Harvard Trainer. It can be unmistakably identified by  the harsh engine note, due to the high tip speed of the airscrew."  What could a gang of louts like us do with a man like that?

13. None  of  us  will  ever  forget  the  drowsy summer afternoon which was  such  a  turning-point  in  the  Professor's life.

14. We were  sprawlingcontentedly  on the warm grass while Corporal  Turnbull was taking a lesson on  the hand grenade.

15. Corporal  Turnbull  was  a  young  man, but he was not a man to be  trifled  with.He had come back from Dunkirk with  all his equipment correct and accounted for and his kitten in his pocket. He was our hero, and we used to tell each other that he was so tough that you could  hammer nails into him without his noticing it.

16. _"The outside of a grenade, as you can see," Corporal Turnbull was saying, "is  divided up into a large number of fragments to assist segmentation"

17. "Forty-four"

18. "What's that?" The Corporal looked over his shoulder 

19. "Forty-four segments." The Professor beamed at him.

20. The  Corporal  said  nothing,  but  his  brow  tightened.  He  opened  his  mouth  to  resume.

21. "And by the way, Corporal." We were all thunder-struck.

22. The Professor was speaking again. "Shouldn't you have started off with the five  characteristics of the grenade? Our instructor at the other camp always used to,  you know."

23. In the silence that followed a dark flush stained the tan of Corporal's face. "Here,"  he said at last, "you give this lecture". As if afraid to say any more, he tossed the  grenade to the Professor. Quite unabashed, Private Quelch climbed to his feet  and with the aid of a man coming into his birth-right gave us an unexceptionable  lecture on the grenade.

24. The squad listened in a cowed, horrified kind of silence. Corporal Turnbull stood  and watched, impassive except for a searching intentness of gaze. When the  lecture was finished he said, "Thank you, Private Quelch. Fall in with the others  now."  He  did  not  speak  again  until  we  had  fallen  in  and  were  waiting  to  be 

Please refer to the link below - CBSE Class 9 English Fiction The Man Who Knew